Kit Connor shines in hollow Broadway show

Over on 43rd Street, the Broadway musical comedy “& Juliet” has been running for two years. 

And on Thursday night, seven blocks away at Circle in the Square Theatre opened its companion piece — “Romeo &.”

OK, director Sam Gold’s, nntz-nntz, party-hardy production of William Shakespeare’s tragedy is actually called “Romeo + Juliet,” swiping the youthful “+” from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. 

Ampersand, schmampersand.

But, without question, Kit Connor’s Romeo is the sole reason to get thee to the theater. What an impressive, heart-stopping Broadway debut from the young British star of Netflix’s “Heartstopper.”

Any staging of this play worth its salt forces the audience, for a time anyway, to buy into the star-crossed lovers’ ill-fated romance. 

That they are naive teens, their hormonal friends are killing each other over an ancient family feud and the story is set over a whirlwind five days, always makes the effort an uphill battle. 

Connor’s soft touch, generosity of spirit and easy facility with the classical language is why we almost rally around the pair. 

His YA, good-listener persona is a sublime contrast to the violent world his character inhabits. And he’s one of the only performers onstage who takes full advantage of the relatively intimate, in-the-round space, profoundly connecting with other performers and close-quarters theatergoers.

During one scene, Connor politely — frantically — begs an audience member to borrow their chair. The move would be a capital-G gimmick were he not so endearing and spontaneous while he does it.

On the balcony, though, his co-star Rachel Zegler begs the question: Wherefore art thou Juliet? 

On its surface, her casting makes sense. After all, she played Maria, Midtown West’s very own Juliet, in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story.” The actress is splendid in that film in which music — not iambic pentameter — is the food of love. 

Shakespeare’s words, however, do not come as naturally to Zegler as songs do, and sparks do not fly with Connor’s Romeo. 

She tries to give her Ms. Capulet some edge, much like she did with Lucy Gray Baird in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Jules is direct and angsty. And, going with what she knows, Zegler croons a tune of two by Jack Antonoff. But it all rings false.

Really, despite a rabble-rousing start, the entire second half of the show is as hollow as a drum.

Conceptually, “Romeo + Juliet” is one of Gold’s more palatable takes on the Bard. His last, “Macbeth,” starring Daniel Craig, was execrable. I often hesitate to speak its name — not out of age-old superstition, but PTSD. 

Gold’s “R+J” is also leaps and bounds better than director Jamie Lloyd’s recent drear-fest I saw in London, starring Tom Holland of “Spider-Man.”

This go-round, Gold’s big idea is, pretty much, Season 3 of “Euphoria.” Scored by dance music on a set of teddy bears and Hello Kittys by the firm called dots that’s bathed in designer Isabella Byrd’s blue and pink light, you feel as though you’re a fly on the wall at a house party in the suburbs while someone’s parents are away.

Juliet’s bedroom dreamily descends from the ceiling above an oasis of colorful flowers. And, at other points, Gold makes clever use of the lighting grid above our heads to create a sense of upheaval and unease.

That’s all well and good. If only the play’s pesky lines got as much TLC as the atmosphere. 

Outside of a solid Taheen Modak as Romeo’s cousin Benvolio, no actor comfortably inhabits their character. The performances are loud rather than lived-in. And there is some peculiar doubling up of roles, none more abrupt than Tommy Dorfman as both Tybalt and the Nurse — a combo I expect to never see again.

And Gabby Beans — a supernova in “The Skin of Our Teeth,” but misused here — plays Mercutio, the Friar and gets handed the prologue. 

The effect can be like visiting a far-away high school where the English teacher coaches the wrestling team, directs the musicals and moonlights as the Drivers Ed instructor.

Once the audience has become accustomed to the playful, cool mood that extends into the chic lobby, they await the, er, tragedy to unfold. On that end, “Romeo + Juliet” is a let-down. 

During the dark final moments in the crypt, or wherever the heck they are, the play peters out. The best bits are specks in the rearview; the sadness, less powerful than the booming tunes from two hours earlier.

Then, in the last seconds, we are told as ever, “For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

And, as the lights fade at Circle in the Square, we’re not so sure about that.